PM duping people on Saradha: Congress

Kolkata, June 6 (IANS) The Congress on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of duping people by making fake promises regarding the investigation into the multi-billion crore rupee Saradha scam while striking an under-hand deal with West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to derail the probe.

“The Modi-Mamata under table alliance is open to all. Modi has made false promises to the people of Bengal just to find a political space in the state,” said Abdul Mannan, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly.

Charging Modi with having adopted a dual stance on the Saradha Scam investigation, the senior Congress leader said the prime minister’s actions are diametrically opposite to what he says in the rallies.

“The prime minister has duped the people of Bengal by making false promises regarding the investigation of Saradha scam just to gain political ground in the state.”

Modi had repeatedly referred to the Saradha scam, which is being probed by the federal Central Bureau of Investigation, during his rallies in the state ahead of the assembly polls.

On a day the Supreme Court declined to entertain the bail plea of former union minister Matang Sinh – one of the accused in the Saradha scam, Mannan said that he is happy to see the active role being played by the apex judiciary in the scam probe.

Matang Sinh had applied for bail so that he could go for treatment of his liver that was transplanted in 2004 and has now developed complications.

Mannan, who was instrumental in the Supreme Court ordering the CBI probe into the Saradha scam in 2014, has gone to the national capital in connection with a case he filed seeking a status report of the probe.

Probing the scam, the CBI had interrogated and arrested several leaders of the Trinamool including former minister Madan Mitra.

However, the state’s opposition parties have been alleging that the CBI probe has slowed down over the past one year.

Mannan said the Supreme Court’s strong stance in the investigation will provide some sense of relief to the investors who otherwise thought that the Modi-Mamata alliance would cripple the CBI.

“I am confident that soon the accused who still walk freely will soon come under the clutches of the law,” he added.

The scam came into the open in 2013 when the Saradha Group downed shutters affecting lakhs of depositors – mostly poor people in small towns and villages – who had parked their life’s savings in the company’s schemes lured by the promise of huge returns.